Ambitious climate mitigation policies face social and political resistance. One reason is that existing policies insufficiently capture the diversity of relevant insights from the social sciences about potential policy outcomes. We argue that agent-based models can serve as a powerful tool for integration of elements from different disciplines. Having such a common platform will enable a more complete assessment of climate policies, in terms of criteria like effectiveness, equity and public support.
EPOC Working Paper No. 11 / Work Package 03
2023 / Miquel Bassart i Loré
Green innovation policies in complex landscapes: An agent-based approach
Meeting climate goals requires radical changes in the consumption behaviour of individuals. This necessitates an understanding of how the diffusion of low-carbon behaviour will occur. The speed and interdependency of these changes in behavioural choices may be modulated by individuals’ culture. We develop an agent-based model to study how behavioural decarbonisation interacts with longer-term cultural change, composed of individuals with multiple behaviours that evolve due to imperfect social learning in a social network. Using the definition of culture as socially transmitted information, we represent individuals’ environmental identity as an aggregation of attitudes towards multiple relevant behaviours. The strength of interaction between individuals is determined by the similarity in their environmental identity, leading to inter-behavioural dependency and spillovers in green attitudes. Our results show that the initial distribution of agent attitudes towards behaviours and asymmetries in social learning, such as confirmation bias, are the main drivers of model dynamics, helping to generate awareness of what roadblocks may appear to deep decarbonisation. To assess the impact of culture beyond a purely diffusive regime, we introduce green influencers as a minority of individuals who broadcast a green attitude. The greatest emissions reduction is achieved with the inclusion of culture, relative to a behavioural independence case, and with low confirmation bias. However, green influencers fail to achieve deep behavioural decarbonisation through solely voluntary action. We identify areas for further research regarding how culture, through inter-behavioural dependence, may be leveraged for climate policy.
2021 / Pavanello, F., E. De Cian, M. Davide, M. Mistry, T. Cruz, P. Bezerra, D. Jagu, S. Renner, R. Schaeffer, A.F.P. Lucena
Air-conditioning and the adaptation cooling deficit in emerging economies
Public acceptability of carbon taxation depends on its revenue use. Which single or mixed revenue use is most appropriate, and which perceptions of policy effectiveness and fairness explain this, remains unclear. It is, moreover, uncertain how people’s prior knowledge about carbon taxation affects policy acceptability. Here we conduct a survey experiment to test how distinct revenue uses, prior knowledge, and information provision about the functioning of carbon taxation affect policy perceptions and acceptability. We show that spending revenues on climate projects maximises acceptability as well as perceived fairness and effectiveness. A mix of different revenue uses is also popular, notably compensating low-income households and funding climate projects. In addition, we find that providing information about carbon taxation increases acceptability for unspecified revenue use and for people with more prior tax knowledge. Furthermore, policy acceptability is more strongly related to perceived fairness than to perceived effectiveness.
This website uses various cookies for optimal functionality.
In order to be able to take full advantage of the offer, you must first agree to its use.
You can choose which type of cookies you want to allow.